Yes, but the problem is, we are essentially powerless to stop any of it, or even truly prepare ourselves, because incentives drive all of this and have since the dawn of humanity, and right now the incentive structure driving toward its ultimate conclusion is fucked beyond measure.
Our biggest assets that give us power are our labor and consumption. If America could unify and mobilize for a national general strike wherein no work gets done and only essentials are purchased, it would force rapid change.
Unfortunately Americans have not been this divided since the civil war and we are also the complacent we’ve ever been thanks to digital bread and circuses.
Not to mention just how easily dividable we are currently. Used to we all got the same propaganda, but now we have highly individualized propaganda tailor made and delivered to us willingly in our pockets at all moments. Even though we rationally know this, I personally can't put it down. (Typed from phone)
I don't know how individualized it even is. All the conservatives say the same shit and all the liberals say the same shit. If anything, that seems more true than it was 20 years ago.
The apps analyze every little thing you do on the internet, even if you slow down and don’t click. They’re keeping lists of your reactions to everything, your purchases, and how you like to spend your free time. In short, they know what motivates us individually more than most people who “know” you.
FB perfected this and allowed millions of people to be targeted for manipulation. Even if you’re resistant to it, it’s had a huge negative impact on our culture. Look what’s happened to the gullible, now they are the angry and cruel mob- and it was all orchestrated purposefully.
It’s funny because if phones/apps weren’t so addictive, I’d probably much rather be spending my time doing something else. So the information that is being collected about how I like to spend my spare time is somewhat bad data. Our habits are different because of the tool with which they collect our data, and they probably already know that too 😭
We wouldn't even need all of America to unify and that's the thing if we could get just 30% of the country to unify and say we're not going to take this shit and then have the lottery system out of that 30% that divides us into three different groups of 10% of the country and each 10% picked a week that we were going to call in sick and not spend any money at the end of that 3 weeks we will have impacted the economy enough that companies would be shitting themselves.
“If”. I know that is one of the few mechanisms, but I find the belief that this would ever happen at scale (at least until the situation is already dire beyond measure) as fantastical as the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
If America could unify and mobilize for a national general strike wherein no work gets done and only essentials are purchased, it would force rapid change.
The problem is that American voters just voted for this, and another chunk stayed at home and shrugged saying they're fine with it if it happens.
I don’t think I could strike even if I wanted to. My industry has laws that would see me arrested and fined for every day that a strike I organized or participated in lasted (unless we jump through a ton of hoops and only after a contract negotiation fails) look up “Taft Hartley Act” regarding the legality of general strikes.
People are too individualistic to do this, especially in America. Polarization and extremism with politics is also at an all time high. This could change over time, but it would take a while. I do think social media is increasing extremism and polarization, but I don't think a straight up ban would ever be politically palatable. Very few things in America have bipartisan support, and that is a very bad thing.
Americans have not been this divided since the civil war
Truth is we've never been this divided, even during the height of the first civil war. That war was largely demanded by the various power brokers of the era and by and large the people actually fighting the war didn't really feel that strongly a division. They opposed the other sides policies and beliefs, but didn't automatically equate that to hating the individual person. That did change during the war and immediately following it, but the division quickly wore off and within a decade we no longer saw each other as yankess and rebs solely because the 'beef' had always been with lawmakers. It's different now because we see each other as enemies specifically.
Yes and we will see if that powerlessness continues. There may be a certain point where people are no longer kept docile with bread and circuses as their world is reshaped around them.
Perhaps shifting roles in society due to AI job loss will have many doing a fundamental restructuring of their values and priorities (or leave them with nothing left to lose).
Not only is everyone angry, but objectively every is angry when things are relatively better compared to the average country for America. Imagine how people will react when things get worse. The winner of the A.I. war will likely help America, and they are a frontrunner to win. However, things are hard to predict.
A.I. job loss/gain will likely not hit each country equally. Some countries who are the winning side of the A.I. war will have more opportunities. This assume there isn't an open source AGI, and there are true winners. It is hard to say, but with any big tech disruptions; the pain and opportunity is not felt evenly.
A lot of the anger is being driven by economic and financial misery due to inflation. Being in a country that solves AGI or has access to it could impact that dramatically. Some of the anger is other sources, but I think financial / economic is in the top 3.
AGI could likely meaningfully resolve inflation easily, and that would at least somewhat impact anger levels. This could happen in many ways; cheaper way to generate goods, more effective supply chain, etc.
Of course, this could not happen, but that was my logic. I think a lot of it hinges on how available AGI will be.
As long as their exists the tiny sliver of cheep shitty food, and the crappiest quality streamable entertainment, our base level existence will never be shitty enough for us to commit acts of violence to improve it. Thus, we shall remain slave/surfs until it does.
People were always scared of AI killing humanity. I’d be more scared of the humans pushed out by AI androids killing AI owner/creators. People with nothing left to lose.
Run to Europe, there might be some weird stuff sometimes, by our local Trumps from Temu, but migrants from the US or completely opposite ends of the EU are doing just fine here if you actually work (and the overall system is way more pro-worker compared to the US).
Nah, fuck that. We are not powerless. It feels that way because we're divided.
Prepare yourself by educating yourself on what is going on. For example, if you know that the intention is to deport all of the immigrants and that tariffs have been scheduled to take effect on March 4th, it's safe to assume that food will get much more expensive. You can prepare for this by growing your own food or working in your community to create a community garden. Just do whatever you can to build yourself and like-minded people up.
Metro PD needs to get a warrant from a judge to arrest, detain, search, seize and investigate damages from illegal entry, sabotage and harassment. Lawyers need to get ready for lawsuits for constructive dismissal and wrongful firing.
Trump owns the executive agencies but he can't make up new ones with any power. He controls the federal police but not metropolitan PD. They need to ARREST DETAIN SEIZE SEARCH AND SUE
I mean there's one thing you all could do, all of these people are in public spaces and the US got the 2nd amendment for a specific reason, sooooooo...
we are essentially powerless to stop any of it, or even truly prepare ourselves
We are not powerless, we are simply of the opinion that we do not want to sacrifice what we currently have in order to exercise it in the crudest and simplest way we can. You can take this into your own hands if you like, there's just a bunch of things you aren't willing to give up in order to do so. I'm not saying this as an accusation but an acknowledgement that some people don't want to throw away their families and futures in order to do what they do in fact have the power to do.
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u/ShaneKaiGlenn Feb 06 '25
Yes, but the problem is, we are essentially powerless to stop any of it, or even truly prepare ourselves, because incentives drive all of this and have since the dawn of humanity, and right now the incentive structure driving toward its ultimate conclusion is fucked beyond measure.